ABSTRACT
Conventional, institutional taxonomies are limiting: classifying regimes along an authoritarian–democratic continuum suggests a static, homogenous categorization that aligns imperfectly with the experience of most citizens and with the expansion of political participation displayed in the region recently. Mainstream theories of democratization focus largely on measurable institutions and elites, evading more complex issues relating to power, participation, and representation. The cases and analyses offer diverse perspectives on dynamics of political participation and dimensions of political space. A core insight tempering the understanding of civil society, as of the state, is the extent to which economics structures the possibilities for participating in political space, and physical space is controlled by economic space, constraining expression. When considering changes to political space, economic attributes again loom large. Changes in political space have opened opportunities for intra-elite rivalries to play out on new terrain, even as they bring new categories of actors or previously disengaged individuals into the public sphere.
